This week an Amber Alert notified area motorists that a child had been abducted, triggering interest - and a degree of confusion - for citizens but invaluable lessons for police officers and broadcasters.

Some Interstate motorists learned of the alert on electronic ARTIMIS message signs, but flipped vainly among radio stations for details of the abduction.

Others were surprised to find the child had been abducted in Cleveland, not locally, and that the most vital information - a vehicle license plate - was not available for several hours. Others got the information they needed and went about their day.

The inconsistency of the experiences says a lot about where Ohio and the nation are in the evolution of the alert system. Simple as the idea seems - give the public quick information to enable them to help locate abducted children - it is fraught with complications. Law enforcement officials have to decide what warrants an Amber Alert and what area it should cover. Broadcasters have to commit to responding consistently. Citizens have to stay sensitive to the alert and be willing to respond. Those challenges have been present in states like California for years, and in newcomers like Ohio since 2002 and Kentucky since 2003.

One thing makes the initial confusion worthwhile: 137 children nationally are safe because of Amber Alerts, 14 in Ohio. In this week's case, 5-month-old Shania McDade of Cleveland was rescued through a private tip not related to the Amber Alert.

Increasing the alert's effectiveness balances on several key actions. First, police departments must be prudent about the use of Amber Alerts and must refine their notification areas. The criteria are clear: a child under age 18 abducted with a clear threat of danger, with descriptions of child and abductor available. Police just have to follow them religiously. Defining a search area will always be difficult since abductors can cover large distances in short amounts of time, but discretion is vital. Motorists have to feel the urgency and saliency of helping to track the abductor.

Nearly as important as the police role is that of broadcast journalists. They receive Amber Alert information through the Emergency Alert System, sometimes getting it before local police. Broadcasters' cooperation is voluntary. On this Amber Alert, some radio stations decided not to air information because of the distance from the abduction.

Consistency and quick access to information are crucial to the system's credibility. The Ohio Broadcasters Association has developed general guidelines for response, but individual stations can set their own policy. Finally, citizens must be patient about the system's imperfections, and continue to seek out information - including calling the 511 ARTIMIS traveler information service on cell phones - and be "eyes" for the police.